Are Poles returning?

treliac

StevieJ wrote: »

Tesco says that, since June, sales of Polish delicacies, such as pickled vegetables, carrot juice and canned fish, have risen by 15%.

Leaving aside politics for a mo .... how can carrot juice be considered a delicacy?

whitesatin

I buy lots of Polish food because I happen to like it. I welcome the diversity we have around here, not least because it makes shopping less boring. I remember what it was like trying to buy what are now common ingredients when trying to follow a recipe and tearing my hair out when I couldn't find them.

Anyway, food apart, I have only ever had excellent experiences when employing Polish tradesmen and I can't say that about all tradesmen.

inspector_monkfish

beccad wrote: »

The noisy Poles lot have moved out next door, which is great news. A very quiet Korean-looking family have moved in.

don't lose sight of your dog....

bo_drinker

carolt wrote: »

Round here, the Poles have entirely gone, if local ads in the newsagents are anything to go by...

A year ago they were all about Poles, this year, the people offering their services for cleaning, babysitting, etc are all Hungarian. The Hungarian economy is doing particularly badly at the moment. Even worse than the British. :eek: Let's not forget that the problem with a Pole-o-meter (or Hungarian-o-meter) is that these things are relatives, not absolute. All it means is that the Polish economy has picked up, and the Hungarian one gone down the toilet, relative to ours.

Incidentally, I love Eastern European food; and it's reasonably generic. I often pop into Polish shops and buy delicacies, and I suspect many other Eastern Europeans than Poles do too, as well as other Brits who love delicacies such as plums in chocolate (mmm - try them), good bread, herrings... Funnily enough, Tesco only picked up on this huge market relatively late; in many stores, they've only just started stocking Polish ranges. When we lived in Ealing, I used to be able to get Polish stuff at Safeway, but not in Tesco. So I suspect the original link just represents Tesco playing catch-up, rather than anything else.

Back in the day when you couldn't move for poles I did hear of Engleeeeesh being told to get out of polski sklep shops.

lostinrates

Carrot juice alone always tastes oily to me and I like vegetable juice. I like apple and celery to cut through the slickness of carrot. Carrot juice out of a bottle as opposed to fresh I've not yet had that I like.

Sapphire

StevieJ wrote: »

Another one of the bearish posters balloons being popped, do you remember when they told us that our Polish friends were going home in droves, because the UK was such a crappy place to live well this may be reversing.

Not conclusive, maybe they are just hungrier

Tesco says that, since June, sales of Polish delicacies, such as pickled vegetables, carrot juice and canned fish, have risen by 15%.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8364386.stm

They are moving back or staying for the moment to claim benefits. Women come over here to breed just so that their offspring – even when they go back to Poland, which many of them intend to – can have benefits claimed from the British taxpayer.

There are still many, many Poles here – I hear them swearing every third word when having conversations among themselves when I travel on buses and the Tube.

There really is no reason for them to be here now. The Polish economy has improved, while the British economy has sunk, and the jobs they are taking here should be done by the native British population, given the state of unemployment in this country. They also send money they earn back to Poland, so that this country does not gain from them. (Sweeping generalization, I know, but that's how it is in most cases.) :cool:

(I'm sorry to have to say all this, but I think what these Poles are doing is plain wrong to now quite hard-pressed British people.)

Sapphire

LizEstelle wrote: »

Could just be that people other then Poles are buying the stuff. I've tried it and it seems to have that thing which most British food lacks - flavour.

As regards the Poles themselves, I know quite a few who have actually settled permanently but there was always a large tranche of folk who just came over for the money. That's understandable. I'd do the same. I'm just very pleased that this country finally did something for Poland after allegedly going to war in 1939 over their loss of freedom and then sitting by when the Russians moved in for 45 years. Some of the debt repaid, if you like.

It's good you feel that way – thank you for remembering.

Sapphire

carolt wrote: »

Are you talking about the second world war? I think they'd stopped using cavalry, you know, ess0two, they used tanks and things.

They used cavalry at the very beginning of the Second World War, when they were attacked by the invading forces. The cavalry was decimated by tanks.

Sapphire

Peelerfart wrote: »

During WW2 the Poles did charge German Pzkw's with cavalry.

How much bottle would that take ?

The Poles have a reputation for being recklessly heroic – particularly the generations preceding WW2. (The generations after WW2 have been rather ruined by the Russian communist system that was forcibly imposed on them after the war.)

Sapphire

StevieJ wrote: »

They also had an uprising when the Russians were circling Warsaw, the Russians were aware but allowed the Germans to butcher the Poles, presumably to get rid of the troublemakers :eek:

Wow, you know your history. This was the Warsaw Uprising (my parents were combatants in it). After six weeks of fierce fighting, the Poles had to surrender, but only did so on condition that the Germans would not kill them. My parents and other members of the Home Army were send to a German POW camp, where they remained for a year before going to Italy and then coming to Britain (as political exiles - the Polish government in exile was based in London). (Father wounded twice, mother lost all her family; they met here.)

Meanwhile the Germans, after evacuating Warsaw, then proceeded to systematically destroy the (old historical capital) city with mines and flame throwers. There is much interesting film footage showing them doing this.

And yes, the Russians sat on the other bank of the River Wistula throughout the uprising because they wanted the Germans to kill as many as possible of the Polish intelligentsia who were taking part.